Bright Ideas Press is a company I had never heard of before. When I found out I was going to be reviewing some products for them I was interested. When I saw what some of my choices were I was ecstatic! My two choices were
A Young Scholar's Guide to Composers and The Mystery of History Volume I. I was sent both of them to review.
I have been wanting to add a composer study to our school and
A Young Scholar's Guide to Composers intrigued me. I had not quite figured out how I was going to add this in and just never got around to it. Using this curriculum has made it easy.
First the info: A Young Scholar's Guide to Composers is a one year curriculum. (32 weeks) grades 4-8, $34.95 for the print copy, 298 pages(book) and $29.95 on CD-ROM. I received the print copy.
The first thing I did was to have the binding removed and have it spiral bound for easier use and copying. I had this done at my local office supply store for about $4.
What you will find inside:
26 biographies from Antonio Vivaldi to John Williams
An explanation of 6 eras of music
Maps
Composer Info cards
Coloring pages
Reproducible Timeline
Games to play
Book list Resource
note taking pages
Music listening suggestions
There is a story to read each week You can choose to do the additional items I listed above. You can do all of them or pick and choose what fits your student and your schedule. We are using this 2-3 times per week depending on our week.
There is no music included with this curriculum. There is an appendix of music suggestions towards the back of the book with websites such as you tube for finding the pieces for each composer. You could also do an internet search to find the suggested pieces or try searching your library as well. You will not need to purchase the music to listen to the selections unless you choose to.
I like that I am able to use this with both of my boys. They both have an interest in music and both enjoy classical music. We listen to classical music almost daily in our home and this curriculum has made it very easy to add in learning about different composers, their history as well as learning when those pieces were written and where on the timeline they belong. My four year old is able to do the coloring pages and listen along to the music while my 8 year old does the lessons.
Young Composer's Sample Pages
The Mystery of History is a history curriculum that I have been wanting since I heard author Linda Lacour Hobar speak last summer at an online homeschooling conference. I was so excited that I was going to get to review it!
Info on Mystery of History: This volume covers Creation to the Resurrection. targeted for grades 4th - 8th. (this can be adapted to younger and older grades-see below) Print copy $49.95.
The stories are chronologically based and combine biblical history with secular history all in one. This curriculum is broken down into three age groups younger (K- 3rd), middle (4th-8th) older (High School).
Here is what you will find in this book:
There are roughly 100 lessons in this volume ( three lessons each week to cover a 36 week school year)
Pretests for each lesson to see what your student knows about that particular story or event and expose them to new terms and names they may not have heard before.
Around the World summaries at the beginning of each quarter to introduce the time period.
Hands on activities
Memory cards
Reviews
Quizzes
Quarterly worksheets
Semester Tests
Student Notebooks
and much more....
Once again I took this book to my local office supply store and had the binding removed and spiral bound for easier use.
I love this curriculum! It is easy to read and makes a wonderful read aloud without even adding in the activities, quizzes etc listed above. I love that we are learning both Biblical and secular history at the same time. It puts it all together for us. Unlike the way I learned history Biblical and secular separate from one another which made it difficult for me to put together what was happening in other parts of the world during Bible times. I know we will be using this and future volumes of The Mystery of History.
Find out more about the
Mystery of History.
Mystery of History Sample PagesSample WeekPlease be sure to visit my crew mates at the
TOS Homeschool Blog to read other reviews from Bright Ideas Press.
Disclosure: This product was provided to me free as a member of the The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew 2009-2010. All reviews and opinions expressed on this blog are my own 
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We were even able to convince Kaden to hold the snake. Although he was not overly thrilled to do so.
After Aunt Lynn joined in the picture taking it was just hopeless to get this group to pose nicely! We were laughing so hard at her!
Cutting the tops off their pumpkins. They both did well. I was a little leery to let Kaden have that cutting tool but he was so insistent and is so independent. I let him have a go of it. He did really well.
scooping out the guts......(yes it was really warm here, notice the missing shirt!)
Our completed pumpkins....after two hours of me carving!
Darth Maul
Darth Vader
Kaden was a Wii mote
